About the title of this thesis
This thesis has the title Harry Potter and the Quest for Values for a number of
reasons. The Harry Potter books all contain individual quest stories but the whole series is
also one long quest. In each book Harry is always searching for something. It can be for an
object such as the Philosopher’s Stone or a Horcrux, or for a piece of knowledge such as how
Harry is to overcome a challenge in the Triwizard cup or what his parents were like. Harry
undertakes these lesser quests but each of leads up to the ultimate quest of trying to defeat
Voldemort. In his quest/s Harry has assistance from his friends, grows as a person in his
skills, knowledge and talents, and learns more about himself and those around him. As part of
the quest/s Harry learns personal values through his experiences and from those people
around him. He lives out these acquired values through the choices he makes but he is also on
a quest to discover new or modified values as his choices become more difficult.
All of us engage in quests throughout our lives and most of us are on one great quest,
to achieve fulfilment in our life based on our understanding of what we feel will fulfil us. The
Harry Potter books, like most hero journeys, reflect our own struggles through life, a struggle
against outside forces as well as an internal struggle to understand ourselves. Education
systems also have quests. The effective teaching of values is one quest but there is also the
quest to assist students in understanding themselves and the world around them so that they
can make meaningful contributions to that world. These quests, like Harry’s, can be difficult
or frustrating, but they are worthwhile quests just as Harry’s quest to defeat Lord Voldemort
is worthwhile. Our youth, like Harry, seek values, they seek a way to live, which brings them moral satisfaction and, like Harry, they will face their boggarts on the way and they are
manipulated and misled by people such as Rita Skeeter. However, like Harry, the quest for
values will make them better people and better citizens because if students have an education
in the values that are predominant in their society then they should be able to deal more
effectively with their fellow citizens on a day-to-day basis. This quest will ultimately assist
students to learn more about themselves and those around them.
Stories and their importance
“… stories allow the child a vicarious experience of a much wider moral world”
(Paul Vitz, 1990, ¶ 72)
We live in a society that is immersed in stories, from those we tell our partners when
we talk to them after a day at work to the great narratives of our time. As Christopher Booker
(2004) states:
They are far and away one of the most important features of our everyday existence.
Not only do fictional stories play such a significant role in our lives, as novels
or plays, films or operas, comic strips or TV ‘soaps’. Through newspapers or
television, our news is presented to us in the form of ‘stories’. Our history books are
largely made up of stories. Even much of our conversation is taken up with recounting
the events of everyday life in the form of stories. These structured sequences of
imagery are in fact the most natural way we know to describe almost everything
which happens in our lives. (p. 2) How people interpret stories and their importance can depend on a number of aspects
which include their religious beliefs, their educational background and their socio-economic
background. As Campbell (1993) states, in discussing mythologies, they can be:
interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world
of nature (Frazer); as a production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times,
misunderstood by succeeding ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction,
to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of
archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional
vehicle of man’s profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God’s
Revelation to His children (the Church). Mythology is all of these. The various
judgements are determined by the viewpoints of the judges. . . . mythology shows
itself to be as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the
individual, the race, the age. (1993, p. 382).
These and other theories of story interpretation affect how people explain the
popularity of stories. If a reader or listener adopts a psychoanalytic approach, based on a
Freudian stance, in responding to stories then they would feel that people relate to stories
because they identify consciously and unconsciously with the characters, symbols and actions
in stories. Bruno Bettelheim (1989), in discussing fairy tales, states that if we apply “the
psychoanalytic model of the human personality, fairy tales carry important messages to the
conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind, on whatever level each is functioning
at the time” (p. 6). This example explains that, as Perry Nodelman (1996) states, “We all
read the same texts in different ways - partly because of our differing tastes and interests,
partly because each of us has responded to our different experiences of life and literature by
developing different expectations and strategies for determining meaning” (p. 1). Over time many people have sought to understand why stories are so popular. John
Stephens and Robyn McCallum (1998) found that retelling of myths were “metaphorical
expressions of spiritual insights, and that they address archetypal aspects of the human
psyche” (p. 10). Grace Nolan (2002), in discussing folktales, declares that they are:
all about living in and making sense of our world. They grapple with all the problems
that people have encountered in the workings of nature, man’s relationship with God,
the difficulties of living within a society – all the things that have troubled or amused
or stirred curiosity in people ever since the very beginning of man’s life on earth
(p. 29).
Nodelman (1996) suggests that “the act of entering into communicative acts with
others” (p. 22) is the one basic pleasure that is derived from text. This may be communicating
with the text itself or with others who have read that text. Some forms of this one basic
pleasure include:
• The pleasure of story - the organized patterns of emotional involvement and
detachment, the delays of suspense, the climaxes and resolutions, the intricate
patterns of chance and coincidence that make up a plot.
• The pleasure of formula - of repeating the comfortably familiar experience of
kinds of stories we’ve enjoyed before.
• The pleasure of finding mirrors for ourselves - of identifying with fictional
characters.
• The pleasure of escape - stepping outside of ourselves at least imaginatively
and experiencing the lives and thoughts of different people.
• The pleasure of understanding - of seeing how literature not only mirrors life
but comments on it and makes us consider the meaning of our own existence. Stories link us with our human race. No matter where a story comes from we can find
something in it to relate to. “Narrative binds humankind together and engages us wholly –
our intellects, minds, bodies and emotions. We love a good story because it resonates with
‘the basic narrative quality’ of our human experience” (Green, 2003, p. 19). Stories also
allow us to experience new ways of being, through the experiences of others. “Reading is
one of the main psychological tools available to us in the process of becoming a person
because of the access it gives us to other and wider ways of being” (Barrs, 2000, p. 289).
However we decide to study stories there is no doubt of their importance to
humankind. We are continually immersed in stories both our own and others. Due to our
continuing relationship with stories of all varieties they provide an important influence on our
life.
This thesis has the title Harry Potter and the Quest for Values for a number of
reasons. The Harry Potter books all contain individual quest stories but the whole series is
also one long quest. In each book Harry is always searching for something. It can be for an
object such as the Philosopher’s Stone or a Horcrux, or for a piece of knowledge such as how
Harry is to overcome a challenge in the Triwizard cup or what his parents were like. Harry
undertakes these lesser quests but each of leads up to the ultimate quest of trying to defeat
Voldemort. In his quest/s Harry has assistance from his friends, grows as a person in his
skills, knowledge and talents, and learns more about himself and those around him. As part of
the quest/s Harry learns personal values through his experiences and from those people
around him. He lives out these acquired values through the choices he makes but he is also on
a quest to discover new or modified values as his choices become more difficult.
All of us engage in quests throughout our lives and most of us are on one great quest,
to achieve fulfilment in our life based on our understanding of what we feel will fulfil us. The
Harry Potter books, like most hero journeys, reflect our own struggles through life, a struggle
against outside forces as well as an internal struggle to understand ourselves. Education
systems also have quests. The effective teaching of values is one quest but there is also the
quest to assist students in understanding themselves and the world around them so that they
can make meaningful contributions to that world. These quests, like Harry’s, can be difficult
or frustrating, but they are worthwhile quests just as Harry’s quest to defeat Lord Voldemort
is worthwhile. Our youth, like Harry, seek values, they seek a way to live, which brings them moral satisfaction and, like Harry, they will face their boggarts on the way and they are
manipulated and misled by people such as Rita Skeeter. However, like Harry, the quest for
values will make them better people and better citizens because if students have an education
in the values that are predominant in their society then they should be able to deal more
effectively with their fellow citizens on a day-to-day basis. This quest will ultimately assist
students to learn more about themselves and those around them.
Stories and their importance
“… stories allow the child a vicarious experience of a much wider moral world”
(Paul Vitz, 1990, ¶ 72)
We live in a society that is immersed in stories, from those we tell our partners when
we talk to them after a day at work to the great narratives of our time. As Christopher Booker
(2004) states:
They are far and away one of the most important features of our everyday existence.
Not only do fictional stories play such a significant role in our lives, as novels
or plays, films or operas, comic strips or TV ‘soaps’. Through newspapers or
television, our news is presented to us in the form of ‘stories’. Our history books are
largely made up of stories. Even much of our conversation is taken up with recounting
the events of everyday life in the form of stories. These structured sequences of
imagery are in fact the most natural way we know to describe almost everything
which happens in our lives. (p. 2) How people interpret stories and their importance can depend on a number of aspects
which include their religious beliefs, their educational background and their socio-economic
background. As Campbell (1993) states, in discussing mythologies, they can be:
interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world
of nature (Frazer); as a production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times,
misunderstood by succeeding ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction,
to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of
archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional
vehicle of man’s profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God’s
Revelation to His children (the Church). Mythology is all of these. The various
judgements are determined by the viewpoints of the judges. . . . mythology shows
itself to be as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the
individual, the race, the age. (1993, p. 382).
These and other theories of story interpretation affect how people explain the
popularity of stories. If a reader or listener adopts a psychoanalytic approach, based on a
Freudian stance, in responding to stories then they would feel that people relate to stories
because they identify consciously and unconsciously with the characters, symbols and actions
in stories. Bruno Bettelheim (1989), in discussing fairy tales, states that if we apply “the
psychoanalytic model of the human personality, fairy tales carry important messages to the
conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind, on whatever level each is functioning
at the time” (p. 6). This example explains that, as Perry Nodelman (1996) states, “We all
read the same texts in different ways - partly because of our differing tastes and interests,
partly because each of us has responded to our different experiences of life and literature by
developing different expectations and strategies for determining meaning” (p. 1). Over time many people have sought to understand why stories are so popular. John
Stephens and Robyn McCallum (1998) found that retelling of myths were “metaphorical
expressions of spiritual insights, and that they address archetypal aspects of the human
psyche” (p. 10). Grace Nolan (2002), in discussing folktales, declares that they are:
all about living in and making sense of our world. They grapple with all the problems
that people have encountered in the workings of nature, man’s relationship with God,
the difficulties of living within a society – all the things that have troubled or amused
or stirred curiosity in people ever since the very beginning of man’s life on earth
(p. 29).
Nodelman (1996) suggests that “the act of entering into communicative acts with
others” (p. 22) is the one basic pleasure that is derived from text. This may be communicating
with the text itself or with others who have read that text. Some forms of this one basic
pleasure include:
• The pleasure of story - the organized patterns of emotional involvement and
detachment, the delays of suspense, the climaxes and resolutions, the intricate
patterns of chance and coincidence that make up a plot.
• The pleasure of formula - of repeating the comfortably familiar experience of
kinds of stories we’ve enjoyed before.
• The pleasure of finding mirrors for ourselves - of identifying with fictional
characters.
• The pleasure of escape - stepping outside of ourselves at least imaginatively
and experiencing the lives and thoughts of different people.
• The pleasure of understanding - of seeing how literature not only mirrors life
but comments on it and makes us consider the meaning of our own existence. Stories link us with our human race. No matter where a story comes from we can find
something in it to relate to. “Narrative binds humankind together and engages us wholly –
our intellects, minds, bodies and emotions. We love a good story because it resonates with
‘the basic narrative quality’ of our human experience” (Green, 2003, p. 19). Stories also
allow us to experience new ways of being, through the experiences of others. “Reading is
one of the main psychological tools available to us in the process of becoming a person
because of the access it gives us to other and wider ways of being” (Barrs, 2000, p. 289).
However we decide to study stories there is no doubt of their importance to
humankind. We are continually immersed in stories both our own and others. Due to our
continuing relationship with stories of all varieties they provide an important influence on our
life.
No comments:
Post a Comment